Road to Avonlea
by Kennedy Leigh Morgan
Summary: After a conversation during a stakeout with Mulder, Scully finally starts to come to terms with her sister's death.


1Road to Avonlea

By: Kennedy Leigh Morgan

Rating: G

Disclaimer: Same old song and dance; Mulder and Scully belong to Chris Carter and Ten Thirteen Productions, and Fox. I'm just filling in the blanks for the beloved surfer boy. Anne Of Green Gables belongs to L.M. Montgomery or who ever owns the copyright now, any references therein are used with no permission.

To my mom and Lydia, bosom friends and kindred spirits.

So without further ado let's get on with the show.

"Hey Scully?" Fox Mulder asked, almost timidly from the drivers seat of their Bureau issue Ford Taurus. They were currently on the last leg of another late night stakeout, this one was on behalf of the VCS.

"Yeah?" His partner answered tiredly, barely managing to stay awake.

"If you could live in another time period, when would it be?"

Scully straightened up in her seat and gave the question the thought that Mulder's tone suggested it deserved.

"Past or future?"

"Past."

"Then in the early 1900's I suppose."

"How come?"

"It seems like it was a time in between wars, when the world was producing new and amazing technology in leaps and bounds. Life was simpler then in a way I think, though I'm sure many would disagree with me."

Mulder was silent as he pondered her answer for awhile, as if it alone would unlock the world's greatest secrets or treasure.

"When would you choose?" Scully asked, more than a little curious to know what brought the question on in the first place.

"Sometime medieval I think. Where I could be a knight and fight Dragons and always get the girl in the end."

Scully couldn't suppress the smile his answer brought.

"Always have to be the hero huh?"

Mulder shot her a self-depreciative grin in return.

"Would you ever want to live in someplace from a movie or a book? Like Oz or on the Enterprise?"

"I guess it would depend on whether life there would be like the movies and everything ended in happily ever after."

"Good point."

"When we were younger," Scully began quietly, as if talking any louder would hurt. "Melissa and I would pretend we lived in Avonlea and were the best of friends with Anne Shirley. We read the Anne of Green Gables books over and over, I think I actually read them more than Moby Dick. I was twenty when the movies came out, Melissa was twenty-two, and we decided we were going to go to Prince Edward Island where everything took place, a year later we did."

She paused for a long time and for a minute Mulder was afraid she was done talking. Melissa had died one year ago and not once had Mulder heard Scully remember her out-loud, she only raged at the men who killed her. Maybe she was finally dealing with her sister's death.

"We had a great time, wandering around just looking at things, talking about the books and growing up and everything in between. When we got home I went off to college and didn't see her much. When I was through med-school and almost into the FBI we went back again with my mom. It was the last vacation the three of us ever took together."

She tried to hide it but Mulder heard her voice crack at the end. Her eyes filled with tears and she turned away so he wouldn't see.

"My mom used to read Sam those books," Mulder mused in an attempt to bring some cheer back to the conversation." I always said they were girly and mushy but I'd listen in once and a while."

"Melissa used to joke that those books were the only girly things I liked until highschool." She attempted a smile when she said this, but it fell flat because of the orange sized lump in her throat.

Mulder could see her battling with her emotions and so he tried to comfort her.

"Hey," he said softly, laying a hand on her shoulder."It's okay to be sad when you think about her. You don't have to be happy and strong all the time."

"Does it ever get any easier?" She whispered, sounding for all the world like a devastated child.

Mulder sighed, he was the last person to ask that. He'd spent more than half his life trying to live without his sister.

"It gets easier to look back and love them for what they gave you, instead of missing what they didn't have time to," he said carefully.

"And the hole in my heart? Does that ever heal?"

"Only if you let it."

Scully let out a derisive and very un-ladylike snort.

"Well I've been trying for a year to let it and haven't figured out how yet."

"Have you even cried for her yet Scully?" Mulder asked concerned that his best friend wasn't allowing herself to go through the natural grieving process.

The question hurt for some reason, though he hadn't intended it to. She turned to face him and he saw a single tear making its way down her right cheek. It was the first of many to come but they wouldn't because her expressive baby-blues now held only defiant anger.

In a way her silent glare answered the question more efficiently than words. It made Mulder finally realize two things: A) she hadn't let herself cry yet, and B) that she really needed to. The psychologist and the friend in him knew this but he also understood why she didn't. Grieving made it real, the longer she numbed herself from the truth the longer before she had to accept it.

Headlights flashed in the rearview mirror, signaling the arrival of their relief from duty. So Mulder pulled away from the curb and drove toward Scully's house. He figured she was ticked off at him now, she gave him the silent treatment the whole way home.

In truth she wasn't mad. Not at Mulder anyway. She was mad at Melissa for letting go when the doctors thought she'd pull through. She was mad at the men who killed her for being so sloppy as to just shoot the first person who walked through the door.

But mostly she was angry at herself for not being the one who got shot, for not being there when Melissa died, for not grieving for her and moving on. For not crying.

Her anger wasn't enough to bring the tears back though and before she knew it, Mulder had parked the car outside her building and had even opened her door for her.

She got out of the car wordlessly, too numb to care about anything at the moment.Mulder followed her all the way to her door, he said nothing, his hand failed to find its usual spot on the small of her back and their silence had become awkward.

She opened her door and walked inside, "Goodnight Mulder, I'll see you tomorrow." The words came automatically so she sounded like a robot. She didn't even look at him; she didn't want his pity, she didn't want him to psychoanalyze her. She didn't want to talk to him at all. So she shut the door behind herself before he had a chance to reply.

Once inside she didn't move, except to turn around and lean heavily against the door. She let out a long shuddering breath. How had a harmless, light conversation about living in another time turned so painful?

What happened next couldn't be stopped, it was already too long in coming. Scully felt the high stone walls she'd built up around her heart, around her emotions, crumble into dust and then into nothingness. She'd down to the floor as the onslaught of tears came thoroughly and irrovocably.

Mulder stood outside Scully's door, leaning sideways against it. He felt a little guilty for purposely using his position to listen to everything going on inside her apartment.

Unfortunately there was nothing going on. She hadn't turned on the lights, she wasn't moving around, she hadn't locked her door and he was pretty sure he could hear her breathing on just the other side of it. Definitely not a good sign.

Naturally he heard her slide down to the floor and heard her breath come in harsh, sporadic sobs. He didn't hesitate after that to push his way inside. The door swung open slowly because Scully lay crumpled just inside, but he managed to get it open just enough to slide in sideways.

The shadowy form before him made his heart break for her. He shut the door gently before dropping to the floor next to his partner; next to his best friend. _My everything._ He admitted to himself as he pulled her into his arms.

She didn't protest, nor did the water-works cease. What scared him the most was she didn't seem to respond at all, she simply sagged against him in defeat.

Mulder expected all of these things, so he got them both as comfortable as was possible on the hardwood floor and proceeded to rock her and whisper comforting words in her ear.

"That's good Dana," he would say, or sometimes," Your doing fine Sweetheart, just let it out."

Two hours later the sobs stopped wracking her body and became quieter and farther in between. Eventually, her breathing grew soft and even. Mulder didn't need to look down to know she'd fallen asleep.

He waited ten minutes to be sure she wouldn't wake up before he stood up and carried her to her bedroom. Once he was next to her bed he pulled off her coat and suit jacket carefully, her shoes went next (the three inch heels made his feet hurt just to touch them).

She whimpered when he set her down but stayed asleep. He covered her with blankets and placed a nearly nonexistent kiss on her forehead before retreating to the living room to crash on her couch for the night.

XXXXXXXXX

Scully woke the next morning slightly surprised to be in her bed. Her cheeks felt hot and sticky from last night's tears. She wandered into the bathroom to wash her ace and run a brush through her messy hair.

'Ugh, my iron's gonna go on strike,' she though, looking at her rumpled suit. It was the third one she'd managed to fall asleep in this week alone. She changed into a pair of mens pajama bottoms (though they were too big and had to be rolled at the waist and the cuffs for her to even walk, they were also her favorite pair) and shrugged into a white T-shirt.

Afterwards it finally dawned on her that it was Friday and there was no way she'd woken up in time for work. She went back into her bedroom and seized her alarm clock. 11:21. Skinner was not going to be pleased; or Mulder for that matter.

Now would probably be a good time to call and try to salvage her job. She went out to the kitchen to do just that and was met by the sight of Mulder himself. He stood at the stove flipping pancakes into the air and catching them in the frying pan. Scully could smell sausage, mango and... french vanilla coffee too. Her favorite.

This went a long way to convince her that playing hooky all day was a perfectly good idea. Of course, persuading her boss to see it that way would be an entirely different matter. He didn't seem the type to like flavored coffee.

"Mulder, Skinner..." She began but he cut her off.

"I already called him," Mulder said with a flip of a pancake. "I told him you got sick on the stakeout last night and I was staying with you to make sure you didn't need a hospital."

The sad thing was that last night this tale may not have been too far from the truth.

"Thank you," was all she could say.

"No problem." He placed a plate and fork at the counter. "Pull up a stool Scully and prepare for the best pancakes on the planet. Except for maybe your mother's," he added as an afterthought.

She did Seconds later a large, perfectly round and fluffy, pancake was placed in front of her. It was followed closely by a bowl of mango, cup of coffee and the must haves where pancake toppings wereconcerned. At about the same time as she saw that he hadn't forgotten peanut butter she noticed that there was a chocolate chip smiley face melted into the main course. She grined back at it.

"Mulder you know me too well," she said, amazed at his ability to cheer her up without batting an eye.

"Not well enough," he said quietly, spearing one of her mango slices and popping it into his mouth before sampling one of his own. "You got the sweeter one."

"Nah, it just tastes that way 'cause it's not yours," she joked. Mulder chuckled, mostly because she was bouncing back from last night so well.

After that they ate in companionable silence. Until Scully finally spoke up when they were finished.

"Mulder, I want to thank you for waiting outside the door and coming back to rescue me from the depths of despair," she said with another smile. Her words were light but her tone belied their meaning.

In response Mulder stood, Swallowed his food, breathed deep, took her hand and looked straight into her eyes and through to her soul.

"It's okay, it's expected of a bosom friend," he said sincerely. Then he leaned close and she was sure he would kiss her. But at the last second he veered to the side to whisper in her ear a single word: "Carrots."

Then he hightailed it to the bathroom for a shower.

"Well thank you very much, _Fox_," she called after him.

She started to clean up while his rich laughter echoed through the apartment.

_Fin_

_A/N : _Well there goes my first finished piece. I apologize for any spelling or grammar errors as I don't have a beta. Comments and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated so please review or drop me a line at: Thanks!


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